


Oi! Don't Blink!

by Ray_Writes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Different Second Meeting, Episode: s03e10 Blink, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 13:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20340757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Donna Noble's investigations into trouble lead her to an old house in Wester Drumlins. Meanwhile, the Doctor is flagged down by a different person to tell him about his future.





	Oi! Don't Blink!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody. I feel bad I haven't posted much as of late, and then I remember I had this plot bunny sitting in my google docs. I have some other scenes from the episode sketched out, but I thought just the general concept could stand on its own and I wanted to give you all something to read. Not sure when I'll get around to writing the rest of it which is why this is listed as complete for now, but if you see additional chapters at a later date, don't be surprised. 
> 
> Anyway, I think this idea was inspired by an article somebody wrote some months (years?) back about how Sally Sparrow from Blink was asked to be a companion after Martha, and the writer of the article was...let's say dismissive at best of Donna and Catherine Tate's ability. So me, being the rather petty person I am at times, decided to write a story where there is no Sally Sparrow. That being said, I mean no offense to Sally or her actress (Carey Mulligan, I think?) or fans of them. I think "Blink" is a good standalone episode in its own right. This is just me having a bit of fun. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

It was an otherwise unremarkable day. The Doctor and Martha had ended up a few years into her personal future, which he ordinarily tried to avoid. But lizards were notoriously difficult to schedule, particularly when it came to their hatchlings.

They’d been on the chase all afternoon, on foot for most of it. As time had quickly begun to run out, however, he’d flagged down a taxi.

“Pull over here,” he instructed the driver. They’d have to run the rest of the way, but it was better that no one else get too close.

Martha started to reach for her wallet as the taxi stopped.

“I’ve got it,” he said quickly, reaching into his pockets. “Can’t have you circulating cash out of its proper time.”

“You carry money?” Martha looked rather impressed with him.

“Well, someone told me I ought to,” he replied evasively.

Martha’s smile dimmed. “Right.” She got out of the taxi without waiting for him, so he hurriedly finished paying and clambered out onto the pavement.

He hadn’t gone two paces when someone called out to him. “Hey, Doctor!”

The Doctor spun about on the balls of his feet. There was an old man sitting at a newsstand in a checkered shirt and jumper, and he was grinning broadly at him.

“I thought it was. Saw you getting out of that taxi, and I thought, ‘Well, there he is!’ Didn’t expect you by today.”

“Oh, well I’m passing through, really. Sort of on my way elsewhere,” he found himself explaining to the stranger. 

“Doctor, we haven't got time for this.” Martha had come back up the road to get him. “The migration's started.”

“Right, in a bit of a rush. Sorry.”

He made to rejoin Martha, and the man chuckled good-naturedly. “Well, wouldn’t want to hold you up. But, ah, aren’t you missing someone? Eh?”

“Er…” The Doctor did a quick headcount. Him and Martha, just like he’d thought. “No, no I don’t think so. Sorry, have we actually met before?”

The smile finally dropped off the old man’s face. “Haven’t we?”

“Doctor, please. Twenty minutes to red hatching,” Martha reminded.

“Look, sorry, I've got a bit of a complex life,” he tried to explain as quickly as he could. “Things don't always happen to me in quite the right order. Gets a bit confusing at times, especially at weddings. I'm rubbish at weddings, especially my own.”

“Well, don’t be too hard on yourself. I thought you were alright,” said the man.

The Doctor froze. “What?”

But the stranger’s eyes had widened with some kind of realization. “Oh, this is the day, isn’t it?”

“Hold on, what day?” The Doctor was still having trouble trying to figure out why this man had an opinion on his hypothetical wedding performance.

“Yeah, she said you wouldn’t know. Listen, you’ve got to take this.” He leaned down and pulled out a sealed bag stuffed with what looked to be a number of things. “Everything’s in there you’ll need.”

“Need for what?” He took the bag anyway.

“Doctor!” Martha called.

“You’re gonna get stuck in time. Or you did, cos of the statues or something. But don’t you worry, she’ll take care of you.”

“Who’s ‘she’?”

“My granddaughter. I think you’re supposed to have met her already. She tried explaining the whole thing to me, but I don’t think I have it all clear.”

“Who is she?” He repeated.

“Doctor, come on!” Martha urged once more. The Doctor knew she was right to hurry him along, but he couldn’t help the frustration at sensing there was something rather important going on here, at least for him.

The red hatching came first, though. He checked his watch. They really couldn’t delay any longer.

“Right, well, lovely meeting you. Got to dash.” He stuffed the bag and its unknown contents deep in his coat pocket, resolving to just forget it for now. Then he turned to finally follow Martha to the hatching.

The stranger called after them, “Hey, good luck, you two!”

Martha looked back over her shoulder at him as they ran. “What was that about?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No idea.”

—-

Two weeks later, the Doctor found himself stranded in an alley with Martha in 1969, and he thought he was beginning to get something of an idea.

“I mean, what are we gonna do?” His companion was quickly reaching distress, not that he could blame her being stuck some forty-odd years in her relative past.

Hold on,  _ stuck _ .

“Those angels—”

“The statues,” the Doctor corrected.

“You just said they were called Weeping Angels,” said Martha.

“Yes, but the  _ statues _ . He said we’d be stuck in time because of the statues. That’s now!”

“Who said?”

“The man at the newsstand. Uh, four things and a lizard?” He added, hoping to jog her memory.

Martha frowned. “I thought you didn’t have a clue what he was on about.”

“I didn’t, not then, but I do now. He was trying to tell me about my future in my past, only it wasn’t going to make any sense till the present, see?”

“No,” said Martha, rather bluntly.

“Look, the important thing is, we’re not really stuck. We can get out of this.”

She looked the closest to happy since they’d gotten zapped back to this time. “Back to the TARDIS?”

“Hopefully, because we can’t let the Angels have her.” He began to rummage in the pockets of his overcoat. It was somewhere in there, shoved away and forgotten about till now. “The man at the newsstand gave me some kind of supplies or instructions, said they were from his granddaughter.”

“And who’s that?”

“I’m not sure.” The Doctor found what he was looking for and pulled out the thick packet. “He said I might have already met her, but I suppose there’s no way of knowing.”

“Well, you could open that bag and see,” was Martha’s suggestion.

“Right!” He did so, plopping down onto the ground with his back to the wall in order to tip the contents out onto his lap.

There were a number of things. Some photos, a sort of list, a few handwritten notes.

“Is that money?” Martha grabbed at a smaller plastic bag and took out a large quantity of bills. “Oh, and they’re all from before 1969!” A relieved laugh escaped her. “We’re not gonna starve! Whoever this is, she’s good.”

“Well, he said she’d take care of me — er, us, I mean.” The Doctor supposed it could’ve easily been a general ‘you’, but there’d been something about the way the man had said it, with a sort of special twinkle in his eye. Just who were these people?

An envelope caught his eye, which he snagged only to frown in puzzlement.

“Did she write us something?” Asked Martha.

“She wrote you something at least.” The Doctor showed her the front of the envelope.

“‘Spaceman and Martha’?” She read aloud, a slight laugh on the end. “Well, that’s got to be you, doesn’t it?”

The Doctor wasn’t sure how to answer, so he tore open the envelope and took out their letter. Martha slid down the wall into a crouch to look over his shoulder.

_ Dear Spaceman and Martha _ , it officially began.

_ It’s weird writing you about something that’s long in the past for all of us, but that’s time travel for you. If Gramps did this right, you should’ve gotten this before the Angels sent you back to 1969. If he hasn’t, then I suppose that blows the whole ontological paradox thing. _

“What’s an ontological paradox?” Martha asked him.

“It’s what we’re in right now. Everything that’s happening to us only is happening because it already happened for her and vice versa.”

_ There’s some things you’ve got to do on your end. The first bit’s just waiting for Billy. I’m not sure how long it’ll be in your time till the Angels get him, but you’ll need to find him. It’s all down to him on getting us to be able to communicate. _

_ And you’ve got to promise me you’re going to get him set up nice there since you can’t bring him back with you. Make sure he’s comfy. He’s a good man, and he didn’t deserve any of this. _

It was the strangest sense of deja vu he’d ever felt. He  _ knew _ that speech pattern, could almost put a voice to it, but he just didn’t understand. How had he already met the person who was going to help them out of this? And how was it that he still didn’t even have her name, yet this letter read like a message from an old friend?

_ I packed my notes for the conversation you’re going to record. Billy puts it on the DVDs on that list, and then it’s just more waiting round for me to get to it — oh! and you’ve got to write me the message at the house. Wester Drumlins. Don’t forget or I’m gonna get clobbered by a vase or something, and then where will we be? _

_ I should really have you two look this over before I give it to Gramps. That’d be just like me to leave out something important. _

“Are we sure this is going to work?” Martha was eyeing the letter somewhat doubtfully now.

“We have to be,” was the only reply he could give her.

_ Assuming this goes alright, you’ll be seeing me soon. I hope you’re excited. I know I was. And if I’m going to get a bit personal here — sorry, Martha — but I just want you to know, Doctor: _

_ Not that I mean to create some sort of ontological obligation, but the last few years have been the best second chance at getting it right I’ve ever had. I don’t say it enough. And I’m not going to say I couldn’t imagine my life without you, because I did try that, and it was awful which is sort of the point. So thank you, really. Because you’ve saved me, too. _

_ I’ll see you both soon. _

_ Love, _

_ Donna _

“Donna,” the Doctor echoed dumbly. “ _ Donna _ ?” He stood, letting the letter fall into Martha’s lap.

He only knew one Donna, and if the man was right and he’d already met  _ this _ Donna — but it couldn’t be her! She’d gone off to see the world on her own, being magnificent without him.

“Who’s Donna?” Asked Martha. She was looking from him to the letter and back again. “Do you actually know her?”

“I know  _ a _ Donna,” he grudgingly admitted. The Doctor plucked up one of the photographs. It was of the house at Wester Drumlins, a wall in the sitting room which someone had written on. Well, him and Martha, apparently. And there was the name  _ DONNA NOBLE _ .

But she couldn’t have gotten mixed up in this. Donna didn’t want anything to do with him. He’d scared her away, not saved her. It couldn’t really be her.

“Er, Mister? There’s a postscript,” said Martha, interrupting his thoughts, and she held the letter back out to him with a nervous look.

The Doctor took it.

_ P.S. Martha said I’ve got to remind you to behave. I better not hear you’ve been sitting on your skinny arse while she’s been working for three months. You treat her right. Seriously, Martha, you’re too good to him. _

Okay. Definitely her.


End file.
